UCSF Oral & Maxillofacial Surgery Associates

To be clear at the outset, this review pertains not to the care that I received but the administrative nightmare that ensued after my appointment on ³⁄₁₃. I’ve provided a high-​level summary and details below.
HIGH-​LEVEL SUMMARY
Never have I tried so hard to pay an institution for a service rendered and been deterred at every turn, to the potential detriment of my credit score. Moreover, the imposition this has had on my time and energy is ridiculous – among the worst customer service experiences I have ever had.
When a patient seeks medical care, the last thing he or she wants to worry about is the administration; ostensibly, you are seeking care because you have some serious health issues to worry about. Instead of serving patients, UCSF OMFS’ billing department has given this one an entirely new slew of headaches that I find to be an unacceptable and appalling way to do – or, to be more accurate, lose – business.
DETAILS
On 3/​13, I gave the patient service representative my insurance information and submitted my co-​pay. On 3/​26, UCSF OMFS sent me a bill that did not account for my insurance information. The following week, I tried calling the billing department several times (415−476−2394) and could not reach anyone, so I left multiple voicemails.
On 4/​2, someone named Britney called from the billing department to confirm that «the biller» had failed to file the insurance claim and that the claim would be filed that day so that I could receive an updated bill.
On 4/​22, I received another bill for the full amount, sans insurance adjustments. I called back on ⁴⁄₂₉ and left a message. On 5/​1, someone named Doreen called and told me to call her back at the same billing department number, where of course no one picked up when I called back.
On 5/​4, I called the UCSF Medical Center patient relations service, which in turn referred me to the UCSF Dental patient relations service (415−375−1778). The dental patient relations service representative claimed that he had nothing to do with the UCSF OMFS department but that he’d leave a message for Doreen. He also said that he’d been receiving a number of complaints for UCSF OMFS billing lately and that his only recourse was to leave a message for the billing department.
To be safe, later on 5/​4, I called the UCSF OMFS front desk and spoke with an admittedly pleasant front desk rep who said she could not provide more direct contact information for DOrren or anyone in the billing department or at least transfer me over so I can speak with billing in real time. She then asked me for my credit card information, which was irrelevant since the problem was that the UCSF OMFS billing department had never processed the insurance information that I had given them in the first place. As of this writing, I still have not heard back from the billing department, and I have two $ 238 bills sitting on my desk that are wholly inaccurate.

Their paperwork and insurance handling leaves much to be desired.
Great care can be ruined by terrible administration, and this is proof positive of it. This department needs to integrate customer relations into their care, from insurance management to fixing their phone system.

Was sent to the ER after horrible service post wisdom teeth extraction (at a Western Dental) and ended up having to be seen by this department for surgery. The doctors I had were great considering the emergency surgery I needed along with my underlying chronic illness. They did everything they could to get me better and checked in on me when I was admitted to the hospital. I was given a follow up appointment at their clinic and was seen within a reasonable time around my actual appointment time. Doc told me everything was improving but to keep an eye on things and come back without an appointment if I had any problems.
Ended up coming back since I was concerned about my jaw popping without an appointment. The front desk did great with working with me! I was seen fairly quick for not having an appointment and was able to get my questions answered. Friendly and helpful staff!
Thank you UCSF Oral & Maxillofacial Surgery Clinic!

Dr Gordon and Registered Dental Assistant Hannah are top notch and I have nothing but accolades for them. Dr. Gordon has done 2 implants and I’m very pleased with the quality of his work. Hannah is a Star and a real asset to the clinic. Dr. Tyler Nelson is a great guy who has excellent people kills, is an excellent clinician and LISTENS to the patient. Linda, the financial adviser is helpful and easy going. On the down side, the communication between the reception staff and medical staff needs work. You can sit for long periods past your scheduled time when the dentist is available but doesn’t know you are there. That is a bit annoying to say the least as its disrespectful of the patient’s time and scheduled. I have also had the misfortune of calling in and being on hold 45 minutes to try to make an appointment. I’m uncertain as to why the occurs but it sends the message that we would rather not treat you. In summary the medical and billing staff have been top notch. I can’t same even close to the same for the internal communication between reception and medical. No judgment. Just my experience.

What the **** is wrong with their front desk? These people never, ever pick up phone calls, so good luck making or rescheduling an appointment (you can’t make appointments with their answering service).

I gave these folks a bad review a few months ago. I now have to eat my words – really bad pun – as I can eat now. Dr. Gordon and the resident were great, the initial billing problems were worked out, and I’m going to return for my general dental care. Chalk up the bad review to dental phobia over-​arousal and ignore it, please.

You are the bane of my existence. Well, my existence for the last half year actually. My friends and family can attest to this. The surgery itself went very well. The doctor is a nice guy, knows what he’s doing [obviously], and everyone in general that you encounter face-​to-​face is pretty awesome.
So here’s my one-​star sob story:
I was scheduled to have surgery in early October [this is after months of not getting a surgery date when my teeth/​jaw were all READY for surgery]. A week before, I went in for my pre-​op appointment. I went through all the motions of paperwork, bloodwork, and even stopped in at the oral surgeon’s office to get x-​rays and molds done. This already took several hours due to the waiting in the hospital, so imagine my disappointment and surprise when the surgeon approaches me to inform me that my surgery must be rescheduled due to some errors in the scheduling department. He’s overbooked. He cancels my one surgery, rather than the twelve other appointments that day. Understandable — one vs. twelve, but also unforgiveable.
I receive a phone call in October about a possible date in November. I’m all for it, and then not too long after, I receive another call informing me that the folks helping the surgeon out during surgery won’t be available. FAN-​EFFING-​TASTIC is all I can say. Not only does this mess in scheduling affect me, but it also affects the people around me. My parents took extra days off to take care of me post-​surgery, and I had other pre-​surgery appointments with the orthodontist and dentist scheduled. It was a pain in the hoo-​ha to explain to everyone what happened to move my other appointments around.
Finally after much teeth and hair-​pulling, I am scheduled. It’s for the day before New Year’s Eve. Way to make my holidays memorable, right? It costs more blood, sweat and tears to get a pre-​op appointment over the phone and to the correct phone number!
Anyway, the surgery goes smoothly, and I am back at home on a liquid diet, all banded shut. I go back to work, thinking that I’ll be ready to eat banquet dinners for Lunar New Year. Unfortunately when I am scheduled to have my bands removed, the surgeon gets REALLY sick. Nobody in scheduling can reach him for a week and a half. The earliest date they give me is more than a month away. SO NOT HAPPY.
The surgeon has since relayed a message through scheduling to me. He can see me next week. THANK GOODNESS. It’s still not before the banquets, but I complain no longer. Seven weeks on a liquid diet — I deserve a t-​shirt or something.
The thing is: I’d recommend my surgeon, his residents, and nurses. However, I’d warn you way in advance to prepare for potential scheduling headaches. In speaking to the surgeon, during the last year, his schedulers have changed many times due to budget cuts in the UCSF system. It’s really out of their control. SUCKS, but that’s how the red tape goes.
So you’ve been warned.

They removed my wisdom teeth last Friday. I had some trouble in the scheduling phase– in that they rescheduled my surgery with a doctor who wasn’t covered by my insurance, and I had to spend several hours on the phone working it out so I could get the surgery done with a covered Dr. I had to move the date, too, which sucked.
On the day of the surgery, things went well enough. They were concerned about my heart beat, despite the fact that I’d told them about it at the consultation, and they held up my surgery for a while while waiting for a cardio consult. I hope I’m not billed for that. While I was annoyed that this wasn’t looked into earlier, I was glad I had a doctor who was concerned enough to look into the matter, rather than just put me under and hope for the best. My recovery has gone well, and I’m almost ready to eat food again. I miss food.

I fell a few weeks ago, fractured my jaw… I’m ok now. back to normal.
I visit UCSF Oral & Maxillofacial for a follow up (as instructed by my previous doc). The appoint took qlmost 2 hours. Why you ask… well, I waited for an hour to finally be seen my a student, who asked me about my x-​rays. this was the first indication that this department was a little disorganized. She sensed my frustration and called in a resident. The resident asked me a few basic questions and told me I was next in line to be seen my the doc. Yep, 45 minutes later she finally saw me. I’m fine, the fracture was small, based on the x-​ray my jaw should heal fine. BUT wait, couldn’t she have looked at my x-​ray earlier and saved me the 2 hour wait? I guess I shouldn’t complain, but there has to be a more efficient way to get a patient in and out in a timely manner.

Like others here, I have nothing but good things to say for the surgery — and nothing but bad for the paperwork, treatment of patients, and coordination with the dental school. Something is really wrong here.
Here’s what you need to know.
There are two sides to the clinic. One is the teaching side, where the dental students learn to pull teeth and service runs anywhere between $ 60-​$ 190 (taken from a quote given to someone else in the waiting room.) Then there’s the faculty practice, where the oral surgeons do all the work themselves and where prices start at double that of the student clinic and go way up from there, as implants and such are where the MD-​DDS combination that’s required to be an oral surgeon really makes them the big bucks. Since students can’t work on wisdom teeth and I needed one of mine out, total bill for that ran almost $ 600 pre-​insurance (including x-​ray and consult), so no different than any other oral surgeon. Keep in mind this is way more expensive than a DDS pulling it, so if you’re short money you may want to stay away from this clinic and just find a competent dentist if you need a wisdom tooth pulled that’s not in too bad shape. My view was that since there’s no since there’s no such thing as a minor surgery, having someone really well trained do it was probably worth the money. The surgery proper was quick and competently done.
The process to get work done, though, speaks to the paperwork mess they have. You start with a ‘consult’ where you get an x-​ray and a 5 minute sit down with the surgeon — except you have no idea of which surgeon they assign you (and it’s your responsibility to ask and then check with your insurance company to ensure it’s insured). There’s a week and some change lead time, and then even later you finally get a date for surgery. There is –zero– coordination between the dental school and the clinic on anything — I showed up and the faculty asked, «So what are you here for?» and started an empty file on me. Day of surgery, my student was actually even in the surgery clinic — but had no clue that I was there (and wasn’t allowed to even watch, pretty dumb.) Post surgery, upstairs had no clue that my tooth had been pulled although the surgeon knew my dental student and was willing to work with her. I too would have had a nasty billing issue had I not really just been crazy assertive (props to Minya as well for actually caring after I went off about it and doing something that isn’t part of her job description to get ahead of it.)
And there was the waiting. An hour spent before being seen for a 2 minute x-​ray and a 5 minute consult really was a waste of my time, and the other visits were almost as bad. (And I heard plenty of billing and waiting complaints while cooling my heels, so I’m not alone in this. Wow, lots of parentheses in this review, my old English teacher would shoot me.) It all adds up to a feeling of that no one is really running the henhouse here — the surgery is top notch, but patients come more or less last.
If you can find a good surgeon elsewhere for stuff the students can’t do it will certainly be less of a headache, although the saving grace here is the surgeons are good enough so it almost might be worth it. More than likely will be quicker and maybe even cheaper.
Edit: Got the bill, and of course it’s wrong. Rating lowered to two stars.

My wife was satisfied with the actual oral surgery, but the billing center is awful. I sent a payment, but the credit card didn’t go through. Rather than contacting me, they did nothing.
They sent another bill a month later informing me that they were about to send me to a collection agency. I thought I had already paid them, so I called a number at the bottom of the angry letter and was forwarded several times until I reached a voicemail box. I left a message and didn’t hear back from them.
So I googled one of the people in the finance department and found an internal number and called it. The woman picked up and helped me with my problem. Then, several hours later, another woman called me back asking if I needed assistance with payment. I said that I had already paid, and this woman seemed surprised, because there was «no note in the ledger» and she wasn’t sure if the payment had gone through.
A week later, we received another invoice in the mail saying that we had now been sent to the collection agency. It could be that the letter was automatically sent, but here I am again spending another lunch hour trying to track these people down and try to pay them or even figure out what is happening.
Awful. We won’t be seeing these people again. If you want to use them, I suggest really staying on top of the billing department. Again, the actual oral surgery work was good, but the billing sucked.
Update: It turns out that they had submitted my credit card but they had credited it to another account, not mine. Staggering. The woman on the phone was very apologetic, and it ended up working out, but holy moley this was a very bad billing experience.

I have been seeing Dr. Chigurupati to come up with a comprehensive plan to treat my jaw pain, some of my dental problems. I recently had oral surgery and ended up not recovering as good as I should have, Dr. Chigurupati went out of her way to see me on a Friday (when she is not usually in the office) and called to check up on me several times. She even called me on a Saturday to make sure that I was doing better. She is an excellent, caring doctor and good to see.
I would give this place a 5 for Chigurupati, but the big problem with UCSF is that their administration SUCKS! I have had so many problems getting things billed correctly and submitted to my insurance on time and correctly. It has taken many hours of my time to get the billing straightened. It is so annoying! I don’t know if it is lack of resources, incompetence or just people are disgruntled with their job — but I have not had one bill go through correctly.